Shortly after the birth of John, the Cooks left Morton for Marton, a village a few miles away, and the similarity of the two names has caused some confusion.  At Marton the father worked for a Mr. Mewburn, living in a small cottage built of mud, called in the district a clay biggin.  This cottage was pulled down in 1786, when Major Rudd erected a mansion near the spot.  Afterwards, when the mansion was burned to the ground, the site of the cottage was planted with trees, and was popularly known as Cook’s Garth.  Dr. Young was shown the spot by an old shoemaker whose wife’s mother was present at Captain Cook’s birth, and he says there was a willow-tree occupying the site, but no vestige of the walls was left.  Mr. Bolckow, the present owner of Marton Hall, says:  “The cottage was found destroyed when my uncle bought Marton in 1854, but we came across the foundations of it when the grounds were laid out.”  A granite vase has been erected on the spot.  The pump which Besant says still exists, and was made by Cook’s father to supply his house with water, was “put there after Cook’s time,” and has disappeared.

In this humble clay biggin James Cook, the Circumnavigator, was born on 27th October 1728, and was registered as baptised on 3rd November in the Marton church records, being entered as “ye son of a day labourer.”  He was one of several children, most of whom died young; John, the eldest, who lived till he was twenty-three, and Margaret, who married a Redcar fisherman named James Fleck, being the only two that came to maturity.

The Cooks remained at Marton for some years, during which time they removed to another cottage, and young James received some instruction from a Mistress Mary Walker, who taught him his letters and a little reading.  Dr. Young and Kippis call her the village schoolmistress, but Ord, who was a descendant on his mother’s side, says: 

“she was the daughter of the wealthiest farmer in the neighbourhood, and wife of William Walker, a respectable yeoman of the first class residing at Marton Grange.”

Young James, a lad of less than eight years old, worked for Mr. Walker: 

“tended the stock, took the horses to water, and ran errands for the family, and in return for such services the good lady, finding him an intelligent, active youth, was pleased to teach him his alphabet and reading.”

In 1736 Cook’s father was appointed to the position of hind or bailiff by Mr. Skottowe, and removed with his family to Airy Holme Farm, near Ayton.  According to Besant, a hind was one who, residing on a farm, was paid a regular wage for carrying on the work, and handed over the proceeds to the landlord.  Young James, now eight years of age, was sent to the school on the High Green kept by a Mr. Pullen, where he was instructed in writing and arithmetic as far as the first few rules—­“reading having apparently been acquired before.”  He is said to have shown a special aptitude for arithmetic,